Figure Co-Founder Mike Cagney Says DeFi Fits Asset-Backed Finance Better

Figure co-founder and Executive Chairman Mike Cagney said DeFi is better suited to asset-backed finance, arguing that it can avoid repeated staking, improve collateralization, support self-custody or autonomous venues, and enable liquidity staking. He said Figure has already brought asset-backed finance onchain, but the market remains early and about $6 trillion has not yet migrated at scale. According to Foresight News, Cagney also listed five reasons traditional finance has been slow to move onchain. He said poor user interfaces have helped apps such as Robinhood and SoFi win retail users, while qualified custody and recoverable self-custody have long been difficult to combine. He added that hedge funds need multiple wallets, multiple users, tiered permissions, full audits, and exports for fund administration and accounting. He said regulation is becoming clearer, with precedents for onchain-native securities already established and hopes pinned on the CLARITY Act and related guidance. He also said KYC is easier to solve than many believe because onchain systems can perform programmatic screening and wallet-level permissions.